Vehicle owners, including individual consumers and fleet operators, have many choices for acquiring services for their vehicles. Such services can include, but are not limited to, routine maintenance, diagnosis and repair of fault conditions, and replacement of consumable items, such as engine oil, coolant, brakes and tires. Selecting an appropriate vendor is often a time consuming endeavor.
Particularly with respect to the diagnosis or detection of fault conditions, today's vehicles are equipped with many different types of data collection and processing components, and such data can be useful in diagnosing specific vehicle problems.
Much of the data collected by the data collection components is used to control the operation of the vehicle. For example, data collected by oxygen sensors is used to control the amount of fuel introduced into the engine, to avoid providing an overly rich fuel mixture that would result in decreased fuel efficiency and increased emissions.
Two broad classes of vehicle performance data include operational data and fault code data. Operational data encompasses data that is used to control the operation of the vehicle, such as the data from oxygen sensors, as noted above. In general, operational data is not stored, but rather generated, contemporaneously used as necessary to control various vehicular systems (such as a fuel injection system, a cooling system, and/or a braking system), and then discarded. Exemplary operational data include, but is not limited to, engine coolant temperature, engine speed, oxygen levels, throttle position, brake temperature, vehicle speed, brake position, and gearbox parameters. Much of this data is collected very frequently. Indeed, some types of operational data are collected multiple times per second. The sheer quantity of operational data being generated makes storing or archiving all of the operational data problematical. Some vendors do provide data logging systems for temporary use in vehicles, where all the operational data generated by the vehicle is stored, but such data logging systems are not designed for long term use.
Fault code data addresses the problem of storing the enormous quantity of operational data generated by vehicles. Fault codes corresponding to specific undesirable operating parameters are predefined. A processor in the vehicle monitors the operational data as it is generated, and whenever an operating parameter corresponding to a specific predefined fault code is detected, indicating that a fault has occurred, the fault code is stored in a memory in the vehicle. The fault code is generally a numeric or alphanumeric value that can be stored using minimal memory resources. For example, the number 11 can be defined as a fault code for a specific condition, such as sensing that the battery voltage has dropped below 4 volts or has remained between 7 and 8 volts for more than 20 seconds. Fault codes can be retrieved from memory and used to diagnose vehicle problems. However, even when thus accessing fault codes, accurate diagnosis of other than routine vehicular system failures can be problematical.
In addition to fully automated vehicle monitoring and data collection, additional data derived from manual vehicle inspections and operator experience while driving a vehicle can be collected in an automated fashion. Such data can be provided by a person visually observing the condition of components on a vehicle either during routine inspections or simply while near the vehicle, but can also be based upon the driving feel and sensation experienced by an operator while using the vehicle. The data can readily be input using a handheld data collection device such as disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,671,646; 6,804,626; 7,557,696; and 7,117,121. For example, during a safety inspection of a vehicle or while walking by the vehicle, the operator may note that one or more tires are worn and may require replacement. Entry of data indicating such conditions into a portable data collection device, as described in the above noted patents readily facilitates the electronic transfer of the data to a remote facility. And, as noted above, conditions related to the status of the vehicle may be observed by an operator while the vehicle is being driven. For example, an operator may note that the brakes are starting to chatter when lightly depressed, indicating either that a brake rotor is warped or that the brake pads are worn and need to be replaced. The operator can input the observation about the brakes chattering into a data terminal for upload to a remote site, which can then determine the type of repair that is needed to correct the problem or schedule the more detailed mechanical inspection of the vehicle to determine the actual source of the problem.
Conventionally, the service shop that is selected to repair a vehicle or further diagnose problems observed by an operator is selected either based on past knowledge of the service shop vendor, or by referral from someone who has experience with the service shop, or by randomly selecting a service vendor from a list such as provided in the yellow page listing or on the Internet. While an operator or owner of a vehicle may call to inquire about repair estimates, the decision to use a specific repair service vendor is often based on incomplete data and may not represent the best choice from the available repair service vendors near a desired location for the repair or maintenance.
Accordingly, regardless of the types of data used to facilitate a diagnosis of vehicle problems, the vehicle operator or owner would benefit from being provided with a more complete list of the suitable and cost effective repair facilities available near a location to perform the required servicing. It would also be desirable to provide the operator of the vehicle with the cost charged by each such repair service vendor for performing the required repair or maintenance. Further, it would be desirable to obtain the lowest costs at which each such vendor is willing to perform the repair task. It would also be desirable to provide vehicle operators with well defined service needs (new tires, oils changes, etc.) with similar information on suitable vendors.
For those cases in which the vehicle operator may not know the actual type of repair that is required for a vehicle, it would be desirable to provide a vehicular diagnostic service for vehicle operators that provides the vehicle operators with information defining the required repair. This information could thus be used to create the list of the repair service vendors willing and able to promptly perform that repair, along with the costs for each specific vendor to complete the repair.